For As Long As I Live
by WhenTheSunFinallyCameUp
Summary: Pearl laments over memories of Rose, the aftermath of her passing, and the present. Spoilers for later seasons of Steven Universe.
1. Subterranean Homesick Alien

For as long as I live, I will always be her pearl

and she will always be my rose, my diamond.

I feel like I am bleeding still like there's a piece of me that's missing, a hole that can never be filled again. I mourn my rose.

I've said countless goodbyes. To my fallen crystal gems in the war, to humans, to animals, I've kept as pets here, but compared to my Rose their lives were pages in a book or gusts of wind. And Steven, you couldn't imagine those thousands of years with her, their beauty. She inspired me to be anything at all. To live life. I was made just for her and I thought I would never leave her side. She was a piece of me.

Then I hated that man, your father. That human. I didn't care to understand him. He was butting into my and Rose's lives. And I didn't see that Rose was falling for him, I thought he was foolish like the ones before him, to do the impossible, he wanted to take her away from me, and... he did. None of this is fair to him. He's a great person, a great human. And sometimes I think he's a better influence than I can ever be. This wreck I am. It's over now. It's done, and he's won and now you're here.

And sometimes when I look at you Steven, I see you and my diamond. I see this child I've been proud to raise and the everlasting love I lost for him. I see your mother and the light she gave to this universe. And sometimes I even think it was worth losing her for you.

Now I am pretending I'll give this letter to you.

Sometimes you explain to me things about earth, and I pretend that I don't know what a lark is just so I can hear your love of this place. The exuberance you give everything.

Because you are joy, Steven, my joy. The earth's joy. The universe's joy. Rose's joy.

I know I'll feel it's worth it. I'll fully be able to comprehend what you are and the beauty you entail.

But when I close my eyes sometimes, maybe when I'm making you and Amethyst breakfast, I hear her voice. See her face. I think about telling her I love her still. Like I could walk into the living room and see her and tell her, even talk to her. She's the ghost who haunts me. I am reminded of her when I see you smile. She's like an omnipresent god trapped in my mind. And I just want to know how I can rip her out and put her back where she belongs.

In this messy bed, in this messy room where I am trying to find some sleep. Amethyst only sleeps because she's lazy and likes naps not because she has to. I've seen garnet do it to relax. I need to do it to stop this endless bleeding, thinking. Finally rest. I spent so many nights trying to force my eyes shut.

I don't know what I am anymore.

There was no feeling in Pearl. It was like she was not here. But Pearl could hear birds begin chirping in the early morning. She put the laptop on the bedside table. The sky would be bright soon. It would fall through the blinds and cut through her. Her face pressed into a pillow. She'd been making letters on a laptop for a while now. It worked better in the dark than a piece of paper and she didn't want the lights on. She could also listen to music if she wanted to, but lately, she could only want silence.

Pearl remembered yesterday making sure there was not a crumb, not a controller, not a stray piece of cookie cat cereal on the ground. It was an obsession, a religious action she did it every night before Steven went to sleep. The house would be in order. For him and her, it'd be perfect.

But her sanctum was a mess. She had books piled, junk, and some Pancakes that Steven had wanted to her to eat a few days ago. She'd probably have to toss those. She didn't bother to clean this place she knew nobody would see and she didn't want anybody to.

She looked at the clock in the room. In thirty-four minutes she'd have to prepare Steven's breakfast, get his lunch out of the fridge, and make idle chatter with him. The same way she had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. When she's chatting idly with Steven about school, she'll tell him to get back to work on the stack of papers in his backpack and put his lunch in there. They had enrolled him around Sophmore year and Pearl had been tutoring him in the evenings on math. Getting him to where he needed to be for his classes. The gems hadn't taught him enough about being human.

They wanted him to have a normal human life before he was to become a gem. Except normal human life would end for him, Pearl thought about it often. He'd live of course, past Connie, past the entire town, past everybody he will ever know on Earth, and they'd blow away like gusts of wind. He'll break, he'll cry. Come back to the crystal gems. And then he'll have to say countless more goodbyes. Maybe he'll have to blame it on us, on the stars, on the universe. Then after a while maybe he'll come around. Go on after getting hurt. Learn to be a person, a gem. Just so he can do it all again.

Something Pearl felt she couldn't do. The aching gem was still in bed but she could only see the morning ahead. Another morning on the verge of tears. Smiling because you had to take care of him. Because who else would take care of the beautiful child. A thing that was left in Rose's place as she faded away. Her headstone.

And then Pearl's phone began to ring on the nightstand for the first time in a long time.


	2. Answering the Phone

Pearl was sitting in Beach City's only diner, easing open a pink sugar packet. Gently tearing it from one end up. Her hands began to quiver halfway and she almost gave up and tugged. But she shimmied to the end and when it was open she flipped it upside down over the small cup of tea on the table. A cup of tea which had gone cold forty minutes ago.

She was sitting alone in the booth, now looking through the window at the parking lot. Humans blowing by the window to their vehicles or towards the diner's front door. Pearl had wanted to say something on the phone, tell her she was feeling sick from bad pancakes, that a sudden appointment had come up. Now she was shaking like a leaf in her seat.

"How's that tea treating ya, Pearl?" Pearl almost jumped. Only after the waitress spoke had she noticed Pearl's cup had been left untouched in the time she'd been here.

"Well…" Pearl looked at it, she was tired. She had a hand shielding her eyes from the light, another propping up her head. "I might get around to drinking it."

"Let me know if I can get you more."

"Sure." Pearl realized she just wasted that sugar as the waitress lifted the cup off the table. "Thank you, Fran."

"You're welcome."

As Fran breezed out, somebody else gusted in and fell onto the seat across from Pearl. A pink wealthy mane fell on her left shoulder, a silver band at the center of her bottom lip. Darkness applied around her eyes. A gentle smile below. "You been waiting long?" Pearl didn't have to be there an hour early she just was.

"Oh no. Not _too_ long." She laughed in that too exaggerated loud way she did when she was nervous.

"Glad you responded to my call."

"I am too." The words came out without Pearl's permission.

Sheena smiled. "That night was fun."

"Yeah, it was. I'm not used to going to... parties." Pearl remembered the music and the blush on her face. It had returned.

"It gives me a break, socialization, my job's isolating." Sheena checked her phone. "I got work at 11, so we got an hour and a half."

Pearl saw her opportunity. "Well, I was going to tell you..." Pearl's face became pained looking at the tall pink-haired girl who went out of her way before work. And she looked comfortable in the seat across from her. Happy. "That I'm... sorry for putting off your calls." Another fake laugh.

"Oh, it's alright." The waitress came over and delivered a cup of tea for Pearl and took Sheena's order. "Hot cocoa." Fran nodded and went back towards the counter.

A moment passed in silence. "Do you mind if I ask why you put the calls off?"

"I've been, uh not feeling well." She rubbed the back of her head. Her hair was messy, and she did look a bit disheveled.

"It wasn't the flu was it?"

"No, uh not physically. It was just my… ex. Sometimes..." Pearl looked through the window. "It still hurts."

"I know." Sheena chuckled.

Pearl was surprised. "Yeah?"

"I broke up like a few years ago but..."

"It doesn't go away."

"You know sometimes I wake up and feel like I can almost smell her. Sorry if that's weird."

"It's not, it's not." Pearl reached out as if Sheena was to slip away and Pearl's hand landed on hers. "I know what's it's like to lose somebody." Pearl's eyes scanned the surface of Sheena's hand. "I find it hard to sleep sometimes."

"I just lay in bed for hours, pretending like I'm going to get to sleep."

Pearl forced herself awake from grief. "Maybe we should talk about more pleasant things?" Pearl suggested like she was suggesting what board games they should play.

It made Sheena chuckle. "Maybe we can continue this later."

"Sure." She made an evasive gesture with her eyes, she didn't want to talk about it at all.

"Who were those two kids with you at the party?"

"Oh, my Steven. Wait, kids?"

"The other kid." Sheena motioned above her head. "The purple-haired one?"

"Oh." Pearl erupted with laughter. "That's Amethyst. She's just short. If she heard you say that she'd hit you." Pearl wiped a tear from her eye.

"She did look like she had a temper."

"Yeah, she lives at the house, helps take care of Steven, she's his friend."

"Well, this Steven of yours, who's he?"

Pearl thought about the question. There were multiple ways to answer it, there was one she knew was true. "He's a smart kid. When he tries to be. He's kind to everybody. He's going to graduate soon. I've been caring for him since he couldn't reach the freezer. "

"You don't look old enough to be a mother."

"It's my ex's kid. She… left him behind. With me."

"That's horrible."

"Yeah? Well, I thought it was horrible at first too, but-" Pearl smiled. "Steven's wonderful."

"I could never have imagined I was going to have a date with a mother."

"Well, like I said I'm not his…" Pearl's words trailed off and her face heated up a deeper blue. "A date?"

"What would you call it?" Sheena caressed Pearl's hand which was still in her tender care.

Pearl chuckled but her face faltered, terrified. Sheena's fingernails were a pink Pearl remembered, so was her hair. It had occurred from the moment she saw it.

"Pearl?"

She was betraying her diamond by even sitting at this table. She felt like she was going back on all those years of dedication and love. She was cheating on Rose.

"Pearl, She's gone now."

Pearl gulped. Sheena couldn't have understood what she just said. Pearl knew meant well.

"But we're still here." She said it slowly to let it sink in. "We are alive."

Pearl smiled at her words and voice and wiped a tear away. Then the cocoa came, it broke the tension and the two laughed together. A secret laugh that's shared between two people or a gem and a person who shared a tender moment.

After a while, Sheena walked around the table, invaded Pearl's side of the table. It made Pearl confused, but Sheena made her purpose clear. She was pulled Pearl's arm over her shoulder, with her big hair brushing against Pearl's side like when lion tried snuggling up against people. Rose never did this.

Sheena did.

The light of a summer afternoon in Beach City began shining in the diner's window and Pearl could feel it.


End file.
